Championing education for children with special needs
When I was around thirteen years old, I always wanted to be a professional foot-ball player. It was a dream instilled within me by my father because football was also part of his dream. When that dream was appearing to be just what it is, a dream, I was furious and disappointed of myself for failing to achieve the only thing that I loved to do.
One day, outside the football club car park, there was a blue SUV, in-side the car was a child sitting at the back looking at me. She was a girl and seemed sick. She was older than I was but she appeared incapable of behaving her age. When my father finally entered our car to journey us back home, he looked at the child in the other car and told me that she was suffering from Down syndrome. That word perplexed me for a while until I decided to look it up in a dictionary.
I came to learn that whatever happened to that girl was a genetic defect. She was born with chromosome 21 deficiency. This meant she had an extra chromosome. We usually have forty six chromosomes in total getting half from the father and the other from the mother. This state contributes in the child’s ineffective growth. Here I was complaining about not being able to achieve what I was set to achieve while this girl was facing something far worse. My thoughts were a result of my ignorance and young age.
There is a problem in Tanzania in as far as Down syndrome is con-cerned. There is a stigma against people diagnosed with this genetic disposition. There have been cases of parents confining their affected children to their rooms thereby isolating them from society because they feel ashamed. They are deprived of basic rights, education being one of those rights.
Luckily, in Dar es Salaam, there are a number of schools that have taken up the initiative of providing education to children with special needs. I had the privilege of meeting Zahida Chagani, a coordinator of Al Muntazir Special Education Needs (AMSEN). This is one of the few schools dedicated to helping people diagnosed with special needs.
AMSEN started working with children with intellectual impairment, including Down syndrome since January 2013. The coordinator, Zahida, used to be a primary school teacher before realising that working with special needs children was her calling. Every year, new methods on to how to interact with these great children evolve, thus having an in-house training for the staff and herself regularly, was advised. She is also taking on-line training courses so she can better assist the development of the students.
There are 75 students with special needs at AMSEN. Each child has an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) prepared specifically for that particular child for the whole year and the IEP is shared with the student’s parents or guardian.
The IEP helps when the education needs of the child are to be continued at home, the child’s teachers create a continuous process of activities for the child to do in the confinement of their homes. It may be teaching the child eating with a spoon and a fork, IEP is prepared in the beginning of every year. If the child cannot do gross motors, using his physical features like using fingers, every difficulty a child is facing can be rectified through an individ-ual education plan to tackle those problematic situations.
“The lessons start at ages four to twenty five as per this year and they are categorised according to age and ability,” says Zahida. The classes with the youngest of children with Down syndrome are called ‘early intervention classes’. “This is where they are taught how to eat, how to use the washroom, generally how to take care of themselves, and the gradual progression of the child is determined by the child’s progress, even if it takes them a short while to achieve,” she adds. These transition classrooms are where fine motor skills are being developed. These are skills that require control and coordination of muscles, bones and nerves to produce small precise movements.
Whereas the gross motor skills have been defined as the ability re-quired in order to control the large muscles of the body for walking, running, crawling and sitting, the more advanced classes is where the verdict is whether the child can continue into the academics or opt for vocational training. “Some students cannot improve academically. For that matter, they are taught vocational skills,” Zahida informs.
The coordinator went on to say that she believes in inclusion of the children to the mainstream classes so as to determine their progress. This would include enrolling a child with special needs in a one period mainstream class just to note the progress of that particular student and then continue with the person-al study. In mainstream classrooms, there are 35 students, making it difficult for the teacher to give his or her all to one special needs child.
Other than academics, Ms Zahida explained that the extra-curricular activities given to the students have contributed to the development of their motor skills and health. The school has provided sports training every Thursday for the young ones and the seniors at the Jakaya Kikwete grounds, to an extent of them getting the opportunity of participating in the Special Olympics. The students are provided with qualified coaches for training football, basketball and racing.
Recently, one of the students left for Abu Dhabi for the Youth Leadership Training. These achievements do counteract the prejudices that go around our societies negating the developments and achievements of these fortunate beings. Even their diet is monitored regularly by restricting the intake of gluten and fine sugars.
With the right teachers, children with Down syndrome can perform and persevere against the ups and downs of the society, the issue is for the rest of the society to understand that intellectual impairment is not entirely catatonic.
Ukombozi Primary School Disability Centre
AMSEN is not alone in this effort to educate children with special needs.
I also managed to visit another centre dealing with children with Down syndrome, Ukombozi Primary School Disability Centre in Dar es Salaam. It opened its gates to children with special needs in 2016. Before that, it was under Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT), but it’s now under the Tanzanian government. The centre has three children with Down syndrome.
The school caretakers face the same problems of lack of enough funds and an obligation to educate parents of the children together with the society on how to live with children with special needs. Children at this school do not have the added assurance of making it; this is because these children come from less-fortunate families that are battling economic constraints. They lack educational continuity once they return home, which poses another problem for their teachers who have to repeat what they taught them all over again when they do resume with education.
Despite the problems they are facing, children at Ukombozi Primary School are fortunate for being able to get the education and experience they need. They are taught vocational studies to later on help them cope and to exercise their motor sensors.
Mwanahamisi Hussein is a caregiver at the school, where she has been working since 2006. She encourgaes parents to take their children with special needs to acquire education.
Challenges do hinder the success of children with special needs. Such challenges include lack of enough trained personnel needed to teach and monitor the students.
In order to retain the children’s interest, activities need to be changed after every half hour because students with special needs tend to lose interest very easily.
“I’m mostly concerned about the future of the students because there is not enough of tolerance of things we do not understand. The communities are not willing to accept these children into their societies because their perceptions are rudimentary at best,” says Zahida., adding, “More needs to be done especially in the rural areas. A school like [AMSEN] is what rural areas need.”
